PBL 2 IMC

INTERGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS

Interesting blog about IMC http://www.vitaminimc.com/

Useful site: http://multimediamarketing.com/mkc/marketingcommunications/


WHAT IS IMC?

 Integrated Marketing Communications is a simple concept. It ensures that all forms of communications and messages are carefully linked together.

At its most basic level, Integrated Marketing Communications, or IMC, as we’ll call it, means integrating all the promotional tools, so that they work together in harmony.
(Source)


IMC is a strategic marketing process specifically designed to ensure that all messaging and
communications strategies are unified across all channels and are centered around the customer.

The IMC process emphasizes identifying and assessing customer prospects, tailoring messaging to
customers and prospects that are both serviceable and profitable, and evaluating the success of
these efforts to minimize waste and transform marketing from an expense into a profit-center.




Source:
Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications

IMC does not mean that an organization should only work with one message or with a single unifying brand. Rather, an integrated approach encourages managers to work with multiple targets and enables them to achieve integration of different brands, communication messages, and functions within one company. Thus, IMC has the potential to fundamentally change the meaning of marketing communications and may even be the next step in the evolution of marketing (Source: Dewhirst, T. and Davis, B. (2005) Brand strategy and integrated marketing communication (IMC). Journal of Advertising, 34 (4), 81–92)

Another definition: IMC is the process of using a wide range of promotional tools working together to create widespread brand exposure. (Source:Thorson/Duffy (2012) Advertising Age: The Principles of Advertising and Marketing Communication at Work, p.152)
From the same source about how IMC works: Amazon's Jeff Bezos, who comments about his own e-commerce phylosophy: "We are not great advertizers. So we start with customers, figure out what they want, and figure out how to get it to them."


WHY DID COMPANIES START USING IMC?


Integration, the attempt to present a consistent message across the available promotional mix elements has always been important to successful organizations even during the mid twentieth century. With the multiplication of media channels in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, the integration and coordination of different messages aiming to portray a single and unique image to all stakeholder groups has become both more important and more difficult to achieve. 

Today, integration is needed owing to globalization and the resulting interdependence between countries and marketplaces (Kitchen et al., 2004a; Schultz, 1996b). Thus, corporate and brand managers need to coordinate the actions of their global and even national brand(s) with the aim of integrating elements of promotional mix.
 

A global marketplace which becomes more transitory through the Internet may lead to a customer-driven and focused marketing environment. In such an environment, technology can enhance marketing communication strategies, that is, both traditional advertising techniques and also new, unconventional marketing practices may be applied, such as database marketing, one-to-one communication, or marketing PR (McGrath, 2005a; Edelman, 2004; Gonring, 1994; Nowak and Phelps, 1994).
 

 During the early 1990s IMC was referred to as the one sight, one sound or one voice or the seamless marketing communication approach (Beard, 1997; Nowak and Phelps, 1994; Duncan and Everett, 1993).

Contrary to the implication of many of these “buzz words,” IMC does not mean that an organization should only work with one message or with a single unifying brand. Rather, an integrated approach encourages managers to work with multiple targets and enables them to achieve integration of different brands, communication messages, and functions within one company. Thus, IMC has the potential to fundamentally change the meaning of marketing communications and may even be the next step in the evolution of marketing (Dewhirst and Davis, 2005; Kliatchko, 2005; Grove, Carlson, and Dorsch, 2002; Lee, 2002; Phelps and Johnson, 1996).

[IMC is a] concept of marketing communications planning that recognizes the added value of a comprehensive plan that evaluates the strategic roles of a variety of communication disciplines – general advertising, direct response, sales promotion, and public relations – and combines these disciplines to provide clarity, consistency, and maximum communication impact (Caywood, Schultz, and Wang, 1991b: 2-3).

 

More recent definitions, such as the one presented by Schultz 2004a, add substantial value to old definitions and to the term IMC more generally. The concept is now viewed as a strategic instrument (Schultz, 2004b: 9).

IMC is the concept and process of strategically managing audience-focused, channel-centerd, and result-driven brand communication programs over time (Kliatchko, 2005: 21).

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781444316568.wiem04001/full#wiem04001-bib-0039

 Participants of IMC and their roles

5 groups:
1)advertizer (client) - key participants, their products/services are to be marketed, they provide the funds, have major responsibilities for developing the marketing plan and making the final decisions
2) advetising agencies - an outside firm that specializes in creation, production, and/or placement of the communication message
3) media organizations - primary function to provide information and entertainment for their subscribers etc.; provide platform for the message (ex., National Geo Magazine)
4) specialized communication services (direct marketing, sales promotion, interactive agencies, PR firms) - provide services in their field of expertize.
5) collateral services (package design, advertising production, event marketing, marketing research)

How to become a successful twenty-first century company through the application of an IMC approach. Their findings correspond with the stages outlined by Kitchen and Schultz 2001:

• conduct market research with the aim to better understand the customers;
• understand the perspectives, motivations, and behavior of each individual customer;
• focus on the customer and not product lines;
• require responsibility from the chief customer officer/chief executive officer to maximize customer value.

The four stage model (see Figure 3) reveals that an IMC plan should derive from the contact points each company has with its customers. Typically, tracking studies are used to measure all the contacts a customer has on a daily basis, for example, different media channels with a particular firm. This should give the company a general overview of who sees what kind of advertisements in the course of a given day. The marketer should then be able to divide the “mass” into segments. These segments of consumers can then be presented with targeted messages. This can be achieved with the help of sales representatives' knowledge as well as through the utilization of a fully functional database.

Recently, however, the climate of changing demographics and sociographics and rapidly expanding media choices have meant that traditional forms of segmentation, which have usually been based on consumer demographics, have been called into question. As a result, IMC researchers have identified the need for more sophisticated, behavior-orientated segmentation guidelines (Reid, 2005; Rogerson, 2005; Duncan and Mulhern, 2004; Yarbrough, 1996).

After grouping the customers into segments, promotional activities should be integrated such that they work according to the overall strategic IMC plan in order to accomplish the set marketing communication objectives. It must not be overlooked that communication between customers and organization should be a two-way process, that is, a dialogue or an exchange of information (Schultz, 2007; Smith, Gopalakrishna, and Chatterjee, 2006; Schultz, Tannenbaum, and Lauterborn, 1993). Each communication constituent may have specific aims but the end result should be an integrated approach to the company's marketing communication activities (Pickton and Broderick, 2005).

Source : http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781444316568.wiem04001/full#wiem04001-bib-0039


LEARNING OBJECTIVE 2: Tools and channels for IMC

Traditionally the promotional mix has included four elements: advertising, sales promotion, publicity/public relations, and personal selling. However, we can add direct marketingand interactive media as majour elements nowadays.

 

Advertising - nonpersonal communication about an organization, product, service..

 

Direct-marketing - one of the fastest-growing sectors in US.

 

Direct-response advertising - a product promoted through an ad that encourages the consumer to purchase directly from the manufacturer.

 

Interactive/Internet marketing - allows back-and-forth flow of information whereby users can participate in and modify the form and content of the information they receive in real time.

 

Sales promotion - consumer-oriented (couponing, sampling, contests) and trade-oriented (targeted toward wholesalers, distributors, and retailers - price delas, sales contests, trade shows)

 

Publicity/Public relations - news story, editorial, announcement.

 

Personal selling - person-to-person communication, involves immediate and precise feedback.

 

The marketer  should consider which promotional tools to use and how to integrate them to achieve marketing and communicative objectives. Companies must decide not to distribute  the total marketing communications budget across promotional-mix elements.

Other steps include:
 -decide on the role and function of each element
- develop strategies for each element
- determine how they will be integrated
- plan for their implementation
- evaluate the results achieved
- make any necessary adjustments

 

 Source: Belch/Belch. Advertising and promotion. An Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective. Eighth edition. Chap.3

 

How to implement them successfully (case studies)

Pickton and Broderick’s 4 Cs explained in their book Integrated Marketing Communications can be a handy test. They outline the four key concerns that need to be addressed in order to give your campaign a chance of reaching its goals. The 4Cs are:

• Coherence – different communications are logically connected?
• Consistency – multiple messages support and reinforce, and are not contradictory?
• Continuity – communications are connected and consistent through time?
• Complementary – synergistic, or the sum of the parts is greater than the whole?

Despite the many benefits of Integrated Marketing Communications (or IMC); there are also many barriers. Here’s how you can ensure you become integrated and stay integrated – 10 Golden Rules of Integration.

(1) Get Senior Management Support for the initiative by ensuring they understand the benefitsof IMC.

(2) Integrate At Different Levels of management. Put ‘integration’ on the agenda for various types of management meetings – whether annual reviews or creative sessions. Horizontally – ensure that all managers, not just marketing managers understand the importance of a consistent message – whether on delivery trucks or product quality. Also ensure that Advertising, PR, Sales Promotions staff are integrating their messages. To do this you must have carefully planned internal communications, that is, good internal marketing.

(3) Ensure the Design Manual or even a Brand Book is used to maintain common visual standards for the use of logos, type faces, colours and so on.

(4) Focus on a clear marketing communications strategy. Have crystal clear communications objectives; clear positioning statements. Link core values into every communication. Ensure all communications add value to (instead of dilute) the brand or organisation. Exploit areas of sustainable competitive advantage.

(5) Start with a Zero Budget. Start from scratch. Build a new communications plan. Specify what you need to do in order to achieve your objectives. In reality, the budget you get is often less than you ideally need, so you may have to prioritise communications activities accordingly.

(6) Think Customers First. Wrap communications around the customer’s buying process. Identify the stages they go through before, during and after a purchase. Select communication tools which are right for each stage. Develop a sequence of communications activities which help the customer to move easily through each stage.

(7) Build Relationships and Brand Values. All communications should help to develop stronger and stronger relationships with customers. Ask how each communication tool helps to do this. Remember: customer retention is as important as customer acquisition.

(8) Develop a Good Marketing Information System which defines who needs what information when. A customer database for example, can help the telesales, direct marketing and sales force. IMC can help to define, collect and share vital information.

(9) Share Artwork and Other Media. Consider how, say, advertising imagery can be used in mail shots, exhibition stands, Christmas cards, news releases and web sites.

(10) Be prepared to change it all. Learn from experience. Constantly search for the optimum communications mix. Test. Test. Test. Improve each year. ‘Kaizen’.
(Source)

American Express: Small Business Saturday

Promoted online and offline to American Express cardholders and businesses using Amex, the aim was to get people back into their main street or high street and to support smaller, local stores. A full pack of resources was created for business owners, providing a consistent brand image, ready to go material and enabling entire communities to participate.

• Coherence. The fact that Small Business Saturday is now part of the US consciousness and gaining support in other markets is due in large part to the simplicity of its message, and the fact that the majority of people mourn the demise of small retailers on Main Street USA. Or High Street Great Britain. Or la Rue Principale de France.
• Consistency. The simplicity of this message enabled American Express to create marketing collateral for small businesses, print advertising, Facebook apps, You Tube explainer videos and Google Maps listings that sand from the same hymn-sheet.
• Continuity. Once again, the simple message and the use of social channels (You Tube, Twitter and Facebook) as a central hub for the majority of campaign activity meant that communications remained consistent on both style, message and desired action.
• Complimentary. Its use of Facebook as a ‘hub and amplifier’ was integrated with Twitter interactions that allowed customers to talk about their own favourite businesses and for businesses to publicise their participation.
• Effectiveness. It won a host of awards. It was made an official ‘day’ by the US Senate. Even Barack Obama tweeted his support. And it is now rolling out to countries worldwide.

Snickers: You’re not you when you’re hungry

As with all successful global campaigns, the “You’re not yourself when your hungry” campaign worked on a universal assumption, namely that when you’re hungry your mood and your abilities change. The campaign continues to run across social, television, retail and print.
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• Coherence. While the execution changed across different media and markets, the central theme and strapline remained the same as it was relevant for markets worldwide.
• Consistency. The consistency of message worked well across multiple regional campaigns and media: from the TV ad featuring Joan Collins, to the PPC campaign based around commonly misspelt search terms, to the Twitter campaign featuring Rio Ferdinand and Katie Banks that generated newspaper headlines, questions in Parliament and legal proceedings. These consistent messages allowed the effectiveness of the central proposition remain intact across markets and regional campaigns.
• Continuity. The launched in the US with a Superbowl ad featuring Golden Girls actress, Betty White in 2010, and yet four years later the creative execution of the campaign remains intact.
• Complimentary. The effectiveness of the central proposition and the global campaigns adherence to the first Three Cs mean that when combined you have a long-running, multi-channel, multi-million campaign, the constituent parts of which ensure that
• Effectiveness. According to Effie.org activity in the first three months of the campaign in the US helped to grow sales by 13.4%, there was an 18,000% increases in Snickers searches on You Tube, over 5million online views and over 400million incremental and unpaid media impressions.

(Source)

  LEARNING OBJECTIVE 3: Message

Selection of the appropriate source or communicator to deliver a message is an important aspect of communications strategy.
The important attributes are: source credibility, attractiveness, and power.

Marketers enhance message effectiveness by hiring expert communicators, ex., celebrities have become very popular.

Personal channels are generally are more influential than non-personnel (ad): salesman has more contact with customers, has more knowledge of product or service and can adapt to the needs of the customer, and can treat objections.

Source: Belch/Belch. Advertising and promotion. An Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective. Eighth edition. p.201-203